4i8 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST. 



accomplished under the crude methods em- 

 ployed in the past. I made a special invest- 

 igation in 1898 as to the profit then being 

 realized from apple production in that State. 

 One authority from which I obtained a 

 report estimated the average value of the 

 return per acre from apple-growing in the 

 State at $ioo. On twenty adjoining farms 

 in one county, the average return for five 

 successive years (two of these years being 

 failures), was put at $85, or equal to 6 per 

 cent, on a valuation of $ i ,400 per acre. On 

 some farms, in single years, the return per 

 acre ran up as high as $550, and in one 

 case to $700. When, added Mr. Powell 

 enthusiastically, " we think of what has 

 been accomplished under the conditions 

 existing in the past, we find it impossible to 

 compute the possibilities of the future. One 

 thing certain is that no occupation offers 

 greater security to a young man than fruit 

 growing, and there is no safer investment 

 for capital than is offered by a good fruit 

 farm." 



CARE OF ORCHARD. NO ONE ESSENTIAL IS 



SUFFICIENT IN ITSELF. 



Senator Dunlap, in an address on Com- 

 mercial Orcharding, said one thing which, 

 although a sort of commonplace, illustrates 

 in a striking way why orchard work must 

 necessarily be confined to a comparatively 

 few. 



" \'ou cannot," said he, " plant an orch- 

 ard to-day and reap your reward to-morrow. 

 Moreover, owing to the peculiar difiiculties 

 encountered in this business, fruit growing 

 is really the work of specialists. 



There are not many specialists, and not 

 many in a position to wait ; therefore fruit 

 production is not a business for the masses. 



Mr. Dunlap emphasized the point in re- 

 gard to the necessity of special knowledge 

 by mentioning something which had occurred 

 in his State — something which has, in a 

 measure, its counterpart in our own Ni- 

 agara district, with peaches substituted in 

 the latter case for apples in the former. 



" Southern Illinois is," said Mr. Dunlap, 

 an almost ideal place for the production of 

 apples, and ten years ago, when the indus- 

 try was at its beginning there, some record- 

 breaking crops were produced. Business 

 men, their imaginations fired by the big 

 profits that were apparently to be so easily 

 made, invested largely in trees and land. 

 There are thousands of acres of apple orch- 

 ards planted by these men that have never 

 returned a cent, and never will do so. Why? 

 Conditions have changed. The introduction 

 of fungus diseases and insect enemies have 

 rendered production more difficult, and these 

 men have not the knowledge or the patience 

 to grapple with the difficulties that have 

 arisen." — The Weekly Sun. 



NEW FRUITS. 



Steele Peach. — "Sir, — I am sending 

 you by this mail a few peaches. These have 

 been produced on a tree which I have had in 

 my garden for 14 years. They are a seed- 

 ling and I have named them the 'Steele.' 

 These samples are only about ^3 of the 

 usual size and are not of as good flavor 

 as usual. This is due I presume to 

 the age of the tree and to the season and 

 also to the fact that there are a gfreat manv 



on the tree this year, about 2 bushel. The 

 tree has borne well every year since it com- 

 menced with the exception of last year and 

 one previous year when we had a severe 

 June frost. It has never been injured in the 

 least by the winter, although we have 

 occasionally had a temperature of 20' or 

 more below zero. The fruit ripens at end of 

 August usually, but is a little later this year. 

 "As this is not in the peach growing dis- 



